Unrequited
by youngandj
Summary: -HIATUS- My father... is a man who doesn't speak much. He keeps to himself and to his work, whichever that may be at the moment. I honestly know very little about him. We don't really talk to each other in the sense that most families do.
1. The Beginning

Title: Unrequited

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A/N: I realize this story is unfathomable beyond imagination, considering I really don't know the depth of nature behind any relationships. Bear with me, please. I'm just testing out the waters.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Even the child may not be mine, considering that the last time I checked, I can't foresee the future.

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- The Beginning -

My father... is a man who does not speak much. He keeps to himself and to his work, whichever that may be at the moment. I honestly know very little about him. We don't really talk to each other in the sense that most families do, but my family is not really the kind that engages in communication. I don't really know why this is, but it bothers me so much that I can hardly breathe at times.

My mother... is a strong-willed woman. I guess that's the only thing that make sense about her. She often relies on strength alone to word what she wants to say, and that rarely solves anything. I know that she was once a proud warrior of a distant city, her home really, but my father moved our family far away to a large kingdom. I know my mother had tried to compromise, but she has yet to adapt anywhere. She is beautiful, I know, but I have seen pictures of her when she was younger with her white-paint make-up and her full warrior dress, and she looks right at home. The most noticeable difference is that she looked happy then.

My aunt... is a patient woman. She is my father's younger sister, but she tends to act more like an older sister, though I don't think my father has ever minded that. In fact, I think he prefers it. He's always needed taking care of, I can see that now. My aunt is very beautiful, even more so than my mother though I could never admit that aloud. However, it's not really her exterior that underlines it; her heart fills the empty cracks with her love. I envy it, to be honest. She is a healer and works her hands with the water, like I've never seen before, and she seems to be skilled in it. She flows like the waves of the ocean, the currents of the river. She is so unlike my stiff father who wields the sword like a lifeline or my strong mother who wields the fan like she never held me.

My uncle... is a wise man. He is my aunt's husband, and he is very famous. They say he saved the world once when it was in grave danger, but that's hard to believe when his nose crinkles, his eyes close, and his little-boy laugh fills up the empty voids of my life. His physique does not boast any hint of strength, but my aunt had mentioned once that he is stronger and more powerful than any living man in the world. He acts so young, and he doesn't seem to be capable of holding an evil thought in his head. Understanding comes easily to him; he once sat me down and said to me in that soft way of his, "You mustn't worry too much over your father. You know he loves you." My uncle is a naiveté in every sense of the word, and no matter how wise or strong he may be, I doubt he knows my father as well as he would like to, as well as anyone would like to.

My teacher... is a stubborn woman as she is strong. She plays with the earth, and it bends to her will. She watches through her motions because her eyes had betrayed her on the moment she was conceived, but she can see all the things that any well-sighted man cannot dare to. She tries to teach me how to be like her, but she forgets at times that I was born from two people who share a connection with only their weapons and their bodies but not the natural world surrounding them. She believes my father to be weak, so she scoffs at him scornfully and constantly, and I don't blame her.

My lord... is a leader of a nation. He is strong and just, but his eyes look like they have seen too much, lived through too much. There was much dissent in his past, and his life had never been easy, not even from the beginning. I can sometimes feel his bottled-up anger trembling at the very core of the earth, raging for serenity, raging for peace. There are times when I wonder if he'll implode, but I suspect he has a very long time ago and is now just recovering from his losses. I've only seen him once in my life, and I will never forget the way he looked at me and at my parents. He had said to my uncle, "I don't understand why." And for the first time in my life that I can remember, my uncle said nothing in response to that.


	2. Some Time Else

- Some Time Else -

My father... has a habit of restlessness, and it's equally annoying as all his habits, his precaution, his obsession with certainty, his lack of enjoyment, his solitude, and his silence. He's constantly moving about, doing one thing or another, almost as if he's careful not to let any gaps come in between his routine. He doesn't come near me anymore, as if he can't stand to look at me. It breaks my heart as much as I wish it's breaking his.

My mother... longs for my father's attention in her own quiet way, but like his tears and his words, it does not come. I doubt she feels the need to fight anymore, so she wanders aimlessly around the house or the courtyard, saying nothing. "You chose me," she once said to him. He looked at her grimly and replied in return, "You needed me." She had been at a loss of words then, so unable to comprehend what my father had been trying to say to her all his life. "You always loved her, didn't you," she said accusingly, more of a statement than a question. He said nothing. Probably because it's true.

My aunt... conceals what she's thinking from me. She takes care of me, watches me grow, but keeps me from the truth. She begs my father to be forgiving, to seek counsel to aid his ailments, but my father refuses to listen to such nonsense. He waves her away, and my aunt returns to me with tears but no explanations as to why.

My uncle... tells me to be strong for my sick father and poor mother.

My teacher... grows angrier every passing day. She calls my father a weak, pathetic child. She demands that my father be a man, and he, offended, draws his sword in battle. My uncle intervenes, yet my teacher merely laughs at my father. She implores him to continue, but he walks away, head down, ashamed. I'm not sure of what anymore. My teacher tells me to be as rigid as the earth my father can't ever be.

My lord... takes me by the hand and gazes into my eyes. He tells me the story that no one wants to hear anymore.


	3. Before

- Before -

My father... once loved a princess of a large nation. But during a great war between hers and my lord's father's, she was forced to give up her life for a spirit that had been ruthlessly killed. She had been taken from my father and was placed into the sky as the moon, and so my father suffers internally because he could not save her and lost her forever.

My mother... loved my father in a way only a woman can love. She had expressed a need for him, and he had complied dutifully to provide for her. I suppose he assumed it would be the basic essentials and the rest left unspoken. That was all. After all these years, she finally realized he had not chosen her in a way that she wanted to be chosen, the way she was meant to be.

My aunt... understood that I, being my mother's child, would not be something desirable to my father. My father could not bear to see the child of the woman he neither loved nor had any remote interest in to marry. Knowing this, my aunt loved me enough for both of my misfit parents who were wed in a time when possession was all that mattered.

My uncle... puts his arms around me and advises me to be strong like the wind that causes mountains to shake, like the solid earth that does not budge, to flow like the waters of some distant river, and to keep the fire in my heart controlled but alive.

My teacher... hurls boulder after boulder into the canyon walls of where she trains, panting and roaring. She loved my father once, but that was many moons ago when he was a proud warrior. She no longer sees him as the man he had the capability of becoming, the man the world wanted to see.

My lord... shakes his head. He knew my father as a warrior, not the sniveling little boy griping for his trivial grievances. He too had suffered in the hands of his father, a man who was absolutely inept with the abstract concept of love. His eyes ask aloud whether my father loves me at all. I tell him, "He loves the moon," because it's the only truth I know. He stares at me with rising indignation and scoffs bitterly. He knows it means nothing.


	4. Later

- Later -

My father... watches my mother walk away, saying nothing, doing nothing, like the coward I always took him for. He doesn't eat anymore, only takes comfort in the sleep that he wishes will take him prisoner. The moon has fled from the sky, and yet he still says nothing, sees nothing, hears nothing. I bring him food, and he barely acknowledges my presence. I cannot fathom the sacrifices he made to make a living somehow, for he has always chosen to guard his heart from the world; this feeling shakes me and retches the contents of my stomach into the ground, as I can picture in my mind, so clearly, his still-form standing atop the balcony, his eyes focused not on the sky but the sea before him. His hand is clenched so tightly on the railing, and he does not even breathe. He must have loved her, to throw the life he has away so he can be with her faster.

My mother... leaves before anyone's awake, at the break of dawn on a cloudy day. She takes nothing with her and leaves not so much as a note behind. I suppose it was a conflict of pride that enabled her to

take the first step so easily, but I can't imagine how strong she must have been to follow through. She is the warrior from the faraway distance calling out my name, restraining the strike, but I do not follow suit. She is gone, and I forget her scent in the morning, or the aroma of the meals she used to cook, the sweetness of the earth that clung to her clothes. All I smell is everything that's too late.

My aunt... takes me in with her so as not to bestow responsibility on my negligent father. She weeps at odd hours of the night, when she thinks I am asleep, and hurls jet streams of water at the sturdy trunks of trees. I discover, much to my dismay, that her infinite patience is not so infinite after all. She smiles at me during the day but keeps me at arm's length, as the amount of her words decrease. For the most part, she leaves me be as I wander aimlessly the city of walkers and talkers. I just can't see the point anymore.

My uncle… smiles kindly into my eyes, his face, I can finally see, has now aged by the wars he had seen. Or perhaps it has always been this way. The soft wrinkles cave away as his lips part to speak, but these days he seems to have trouble forming the words. However, his general exuberance does not fool me. I've seen his anger, his righteous fury as my aunt would call it, explode. He went off on my father, demanding him to retrieve my mother before he called all four elements at his disposal to be unleashed onto his soul. I'm not sure if my father even heard him then, or if that kind of power even remotely intrigued him anymore, as his eyes glazed over with dullness and mediocrity. My uncle returns at daybreak, sullen and defeated. I suppose even the Avatar cannot mend a heart.

My teacher… constantly entices my father to attack her, to show the quiet strength that burns in everything he does. She belittles him, and calls him a coward. My father can no longer match her eyes, her brilliant glassy green eyes that fill the otherwise empty voids of my life. She appears stiff, her straight back never bending, never so much as moving an inch. She roars out at night, "I _loved_ you, don't you get it? You stupid, stupid, stupid-" My father turns away, his voice monotonous as always as he replies, "That's too bad."

My lord… leaves tonight. He says not a word of his departure. Rather, he wears an unfitting expression on his face, a peculiar smile. "I go only to return," he tells me. Hurry back, I will him when he is gone. But it is not him I am speaking to.


	5. Now

- Now -

My father... has not seen the light of day in one moon now. The winter solstice approaches, and I know for certain that this is the time he feels the longing the worst. Sometimes, when my aunt is careless, I slip away into the night. I walk underneath the balcony of my father's bedroom. I can hear him shuffling his feet, his muffled cries. He is begging the spirit of his to come and take him away. The moon does not betray a single emotion. It cannot hear him. Or it doesn't want to.

My mother... calls to me from some distant memory. Her face is bright with white powder, save for the red around her eyebrows. Her green uniform is old and tattered, but the golden fans she wields shimmers in the sunlight. Though I have never seen her as a child, I can imagine her as such. She smiles openly at me, beckoning me to come forward with her. "To Kyoshi?" I ask, for that is the only home of hers I know. She shakes her head. "To where?" I try again. She does not answer the question. Instead, she turns her gaze toward the sun. "The world is changing, my love," she motions abstrusely. "You cannot stay."

My aunt... gathers me close to her. The embrace feels comforting, but it's the wrong pair of arms. She tells me that she and my father had lost their mother to the Fire Nation when they were young as well, even younger than me perhaps. "No," I gasp, for I cannot imagine such a tragedy. It was before my lord was considered a successor to the throne. She runs her fingers through my hair. I know, from experience, that my aunt was unable to bear children. I don't know why the spirits would curse her like this and bless my father, of all people, who is completely inept in every possible way. My aunt tells me she loves me every day. My father has never said those words to me before. I'm sure he doesn't believe it.

My uncle... makes me a glider today. He takes me to the top of the steepest cliff I didn't even know existed, and we fly together. He holds my hand, and I could almost immediately feel the warmth radiating from his fingertips. He grins a little-boy's shy smile, as he leaps. For a moment, I forget who I am as I sweep past clouds and blue skies. Only for a moment.

My teacher... places her cold palm to my forehead. She decidedly persuades me, that despite all that's become of him, to love my father. Though he is undeserving of it, this portion she speaks through gritted teeth. "Like you?" I inquire, curiously. Her eyes run past me. She answers back, coldly, "No. I let him go. You must not do the same." Her fists are clenched so tightly by her side that her hands turn white.

My Lord... returns. Strangely enough, I hardly recognized the woman he is walking with.


	6. Where

- Where -

My father... does not smile when my mother returns. He does not even pay a glance her way. He merely looks at me from a distance, in an angle I'm sure I've never seen him bestow such an isolated expression. It's as if he has never seen me before. Curiously, he asks me, "Of whom do you belong to?" I extend a small finger toward the woman who stands still before us. My father's eyes trace along the direction until they settle, rather ambiguously, on her. "Yes," he replies, lazily. "The warrior, and not of the princess." A small smirk forms on his lips.

My mother... does not seem surprised. That hurt expression she usually reserved for my father has long since left her face. She collects herself momentarily and, without meeting his eyes, says, sure and steady of herself, "I'll send you to your princess." My father looks up, politely interested. My mother has already drawn her sword. For the first time in my life, he grins at her, ruefully, as he spreads his arms, enticing her to continue. From the look in my mother's eyes, evidently, she does not need his invitation.

My aunt... is there before anyone else. In one swift motion she is able to scoop me in her arms and deliver a powerful stream of water that pushes my father into a tree. He seems unshaken, however, as he clambers out. His grin is intimidating. As his eyes hover from my mother to me, I'm not sure what he sees anymore. With desperation in her voice, my aunt chides my mother in a shrill tone, "What do you think you're doing?" My aunt ignores my mother's pleas, as she walks steadily toward the tree. Again, my father raises his arms. Come, he beckons her with his smile. As my mother charges toward him, my aunt grips onto me with such tenure that I shortly lose control of my senses. However, even that would not have prevented me from hearing the words my father spoke. "Darling," he cries out, as he lunges for my mother and wraps her in his arms. The sword falls without a sound on the soft earth below them. My aunt freezes and stops my squirming long enough to hear him to say, "What took you so long, Yue?" Yue? My aunt subconsciously drops me to the floor.

My uncle... has disappeared into meditation for three days now. He has not so much as moved a muscle to permit a breath, I'm sure of it. My aunt explains to my teacher, in huddled whispers, that he will demand the moon's audience until it complies with him. My teacher's face yields a dubious expression. She finds it hard to believe that the moon's spirit would have any particular interest for problems of mere mortals. As if he had heard, my uncle's eyes and symbolic tattoos glow with burning-white intensity, hotter than a thousand suns. Patience, he had once said, can be found in all the natural elements of the world. The wind has the ability to crush entire villages in one single blow, but nothing can be achieved. All you can do is wait through it. That same wind will carry you to wherever you need to go. I didn't understand that then. I still don't. I plead to the spirits, even those I can't recall by name. I have nothing that bears even the slightest resemblance to my uncle. I can't wait forever.

My teacher... waits. Patience comes easy to her. She listens and says nothing.

My lord... stands unmoved next to my teacher. He grips my hand with a tenacity unmatched. I begin to wonder of his own children, his own wife. How is it, that everywhere else I've been to, of all the people I've had the chance to meet, I can only imagine a glimpse of their lives. Inventive as such, I'm falling away.


End file.
